Businesses may move health care overseas

[deadparrot]

NEW DELHI, India - Businesses and insurance companies are starting to eye the potential savings of outsourcing health care from the world's richest country to the developing world.

"It's just one of the many ways in which our world is flattening," said Arnold Milstein, chief physician at New York-based Mercer Health & Benefits, who's researching the feasibility of outsourcing medical care for three Fortune 500 corporations. "Many companies see it as a natural extension of the competition they've faced in other aspects of their business."

With an estimated 45 million uninsured Americans, some 500,000 trekked overseas last year for medical treatment, according to the National Coalition on Health Care. Asian hospitals in Thailand, India and Singapore have long been swarmed by medical tourists looking for tummy tucks and face lifts, but many glitzy, marble-floored facilities are now gaining reputations for big-ticket procedures including heart surgery, knee and back operations.

Some American hospitals already rely on places like India for X-ray readings and other diagnostics, while also importing foreign doctors and nurses. But the U.S. health care industry has been largely immune to overseas competition — just one reason behind soaring costs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061102/ap_on_he_me/outsourcing_health

[Systematic Chaos]

1. And, in 20 years, when the price of a plane ticket is $25,000 +++

:wtf: good is THIS going to do?

:eyes:

[physioex]

3. Unfortunately....

Plane tickets to places like India and Thailand are relatively cheap. I had very simple out patient surgery with my total time in the hospital 3 hours which includes waiting and filling paper work with surgery lasting for 15 minutes costing a whopping $6,000. Luckily I had insurance cover 90%. But consider the fact I could have potentially had this surgery done for a lot less had I traveled international.

[Deja Q]

15. Connect the dots.

But will the image you see be the right one, or the one you think you want to see? That's the question.

[FightingIrish]

2. The poor bastsrds too sick to travel will be screwed.

But that will help keep costs down won't it. Accessible health care for those who are well enough and can afford to go get it.

[physioex]

4. Yea.....

Well look at if from another perspective. The poor people in India and Thailand themselves cannot afford the service that the foregin tourists are able to enjoy since the resources are being used on the tourists. So in the end, it just another way of screwing the poor....

[Deja Q]

18. Well, they're cheaper capital over there.

More to exploit.

It's a reboot of sorts.

I have no idea what's to happen to Americans at the end of all this, but I'll pray it's benign. :(

[msongs]

5. say, let's move CEO jobs overseas..that will save BIG $$ for example

instead of giving an american ceo $45 million a year, we could hire a street urchin in Bangaladesh for $100 a year. Now THAT would
be great for shareholders back in the USA.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[OhioChick]

7. Hear, hear!

:toast:

As for the healthcare crisis here...........how about FIXING it.

[Deja Q]

16. The jobs. NOT the CEOs.

:think:

[Double T]

6. The american corporate business world makes me want to.......

:puke:. The bastards can ferry 'US' over to China and India for our health care in the returning empty shipping containers that brought all the cheap crap sold in wal-mart; there's another cost savings for the greedy traitors.

[Vinca]

8. This is absolutely the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

I cannot imagine dragging my puking, high fevered, diarrhea-producing carcass onto a plane for a 12 hour trip to India. This is completely insane.

[cap]

9. if you take your CEO and his executives with you on that ride

I am sure that they will take good care of you as you stink up the plane...

OMG ... what about the airplane bathroom issue!

You will be terrorizing your seat mates!!!

This is an Al-Qaeda plot of some sort...

[anotherdrew]

10. we're going to be a hollowed out third-world nation in a decade or two tops

this is pathetic. pathetic beyond words. God forbid we actually DO anything to control health-care costs in this pathetic country. god I'm so sick of america. fuck this farce of a country, I'm outta here first chance I can make.

[OllieLotte]

11. This needs fixing here...

...and not gov't health care. The gov't can't find its own a$$ with both hands.

[Anakin Skywalker]

12. Why Do These Greedy CEO Bastards Hate America?

F*ck 'em!

[OhioChick]

13. Think those CEO's

will go to Thailand, India and Singapore for health care?
I think not.....:grr:

[saigon68]

14. They will go to Thailand for "other" reasons

[Deja Q]

17. Peak oil, perhaps?